Chapter 144
Sugar and Spice

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(Originally posted March 10, 2014)

I like that the potbellied stove made a comeback in this section of Starbucks.

We weren’t even in the mood to get a drink this evening, so we just went in to check out the location. On the whole, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I think it could have been much worse.

Walking through the hub next, we were able to check out all the pumpkins for each of the lands.

Next we walked into Frontierland.

I never take enough pictures of one of my favorite attractions in Disneyland. Of course, it’s the petrified tree!!

This was the Limited Time Magic “Pirate Week,” so they had put up a pirate flag on the Columbia, but it was already docked for the night by the time we arrived.

Having missed out on getting them on our previous trip, we made a beeline for the Mint Julep Bar and FINALLY got some Pumpkin Beignets!

These were really good, though I didn’t really think they tasted that much like pumpkin in particular. Instead, they had a nice “autumnal” blend of spices that was reminiscent of all the “pumpkin spice” treats available in the fall (most of which don’t have any real pumpkin in them either).

Our craving finally sated, we went to ride the Haunted Mansion again next. Like so many attractions, it looks so different at night.

Pirates was next, and our boat stopped right in front of the dog with the keys, so I tried to take a picture of him. Non-flash pictures never really come out too well on my iPhone…

The park was about to close—we’d gotten to that point in the year when the closings were pretty darn early each night—but we still wanted to get a few more things done. We passed by the Dia de las Muertos decorations that were up around Rancho del Zocalo.

We snuck into Fantasyland with just a few minutes left before it was going to shut down for the night.

We were able to hop into the GAC line for Peter Pan and ride that with almost no wait, then we went on Pinocchio because the regular queue had no one in it. As the clock ticked to 8:00, they cut off the queues for all the attractions, but the doors remained open to go into the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough.

I don’t think we’d been through here since getting our passes (and I know we hadn’t since re-watching the movie a couple months earlier), so we headed in. It’s really a fun little attraction, and we love some of the scenes. This one was our favorite with the sleeping cat holding a sleeping mouse.

We made our way down Main Street next. The masses were all heading toward the exit.

Tracy stopped into the Emporium to buy some Halloween earrings before we went through the gates.

We went to Build-a-Bear, and they finally had Baby Bjorns back in stock! We were about to get one for Duffy. But then we realized neither of us would EVER want to wear this in the parks. We wouldn’t be embarrassed to, per say, but it would just be such a hassle. So we decided against it. Tracy posed with it first, though.

The trams were all quite delayed because they were doing construction on the route. Instead of waiting forever, we just decided to walk back to Mickey and Friends and then headed home.

As we came home, Crooky continued his now-nightly ritual of coming to say hi and sit with us for a little while before bed.

On Friday, we got ready to head to the parks after work. We knew that the first Halloween party was going on in Disneyland this evening (so we also knew that DCA was going to be a madhouse), but we had to get our fix in.

After parking at Mickey and Friends, we saw some black cats flanking the tram route. Obviously they knew it was their season and they were making the most of it. I’m sure they’re somewhere in this picture, but I can’t see where…

We were correct in predicting that DCA was going to be bad with Disneyland closed to the public. The line stretched halfway through the esplanade. We finally made it in, though, and we went straight into Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. We also walked through Trolley Treats and checked out all the new Halloween goods.